A light chocolate cake with lots of addictive cream cheese frosting and a crown of buttercream roses. This cake is moist but so light and fluffy, it really is the perfect match for all that delicious frosting! You can make this without any food coloring and it will be a light tan color, not quite red, but it will be eaten just as quickly!
I did a lot of recipe testing for this much-requested cake but in the end I lightly adapted the recipe for the batter from a New York Times recipe. Wonderful moist fluffy sponge, and I loved the typo saying it made 8 inch layers! LOL, even the best of us make mistakes…Check out my Chocolate Beet Cake to see what happens when you skip the food coloring!
Frequently asked questions
How do you decorate a cake?
I covered the outside in crumbs and topped it with delicate buttercream flowers for some extra visual oomph. A definite time saver would be to pipe some cream cheese frosting dollops on top or make a rope pattern like I used in my dulce de leche cake.
If you find cake decorating to be a bit intimidating then check out my How to Decorate a Cake post, it has lots of helpful tips and a full how to video. I’ve got a Buttercream flower tutorial up on the blog as well! Check it out
Is a Red Velvet Cake Just a Chocolate Cake?
It’s a much lighter chocolate cake with a tangy note from the cream cheese frosting. Some people have stopped adding chocolate to the batter as it interferes with the desired bright red color. It’s the vinegar that makes a huge difference, acid reacts with the leavening agents to give you a fluffier cake.
What is the difference between chocolate cake and red velvet cake?
Aside from having MUCH less chocolate, a red velvet cake will also have vinegar and buttermilk in the batter, which reacts with the leavening agents to give you a fluffier cake. Originally the cakes had a dusty maroon hue from the acid reacting with cocoa powder but as time went on that became a bright red color with the addition of red dye to the batter.
What Is The Flavor Of Red Velvet Cake?
Red velvet cake is indeed a very mild chocolate flavor since it possesses very little cocoa powder. The main flavor note actually comes from the cream cheese frosting. You’re getting bites of fluffy moist cake with a very creamy delicate frosting giving a really wonderful mouthfeel.
How to make Red Velvet Cake
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and cocoa powder three 6-inch cake pans. Add 1 cupcake paper to a pan. In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the room temperature butter. Add in sugar and mix on medium until combined. Add eggs in one at a time and beat. Add vanilla extract.
2. In a large bowl, sift the flour, salt and baking soda then whisk together and set aside.
3. Sift the cocoa powder into the butter mixture and cream together.
4. Add red food coloring and vinegar to the buttermilk then whisk together.
5. Add ½ of the dry and ½ of the wet to the butter mixture until combined. Add the red buttermilk mixture and beat. Pour the batter into the three prepared pans. Add any extra batter to a cupcake paper. This will be used for the crumble. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the centers are springy to the touch. Bake the crumble cupcake for about 15-20 minutes. When done, let them cool in their pans for about 5 minutes, then invert them out onto a wire rack.
6. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter. Sift confectioners sugar into a large bowl. Add room temperature cream cheese to the creamed butter. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt. Beat together. Add the confectioners sugar in cups. Mix until combined. If you’re wanting a stronger buttercream, keep adding more sifted confectioners sugar until you reach a desired consistency. Transfer the buttercream to a piping bag and snip off the tip.
7. To create the crumbs, you can either break up the cupcake by hand or use a grater. I find that using the grater gives you a more consistent crumb for decorating.
8. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the room temperature butter until smooth. Sift in the confectioner’s sugar. Beat until you get to a desired consistency. Add the rose water. Make sure the buttercream is thick. Dye a few batches yellow, soft pink and pink. Use some matcha powder to create a natural leaf color. Transfer the green buttercream to a bag fitted with a 68 tip. Cut a square of parchment paper. Use a tiny bit of buttercream to glue down the paper onto a piping nail. For the roses, place a small cone of very thick buttercream in the middle of the square. Add bits of yellow in the middle for added dimension. Pipe the petals using a 127 tip.
9. Pipe a thick layer of cream cheese frosting between each layer. Cover the cake in frosting.
10. Use a bench scraper and offset spatula to smooth out the cake. Transfer to the fridge to chill for about 10 minutes or until the frosting is a bit set. If you’re in a warm climate, let your cake chill for even longer!
11. Using your hand, scoop crumbs onto the side and top of the cake until it’s completely covered.
12. Arrange the flowers on top of the cake. Pipe in leaves using the green buttercream.
Pro Tips for the Best Red Velvet Cake Recipe
- Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake. The best, and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you don’t have one then fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off.
- If you’re not using 6-inch pans, double the recipe for 8-inch pans or triple the recipe for 9-inch pans.
- Skip the food coloring if you want a great tasting cake that isn’t red.
- To get FLAT layers that are moist inside and out try using cake strips! You can buy a set on the shop page or make your own from foil and paper towels at home. I made a whole blog post on it so check it out if you’re interested!
- For nice uniform crumbs for decorating use the fine grater, or just whip out that cheese grater!
- This recipe makes an AWESOME sheet cake! You’ll save tons of time and you can pour less sugar into the cream cheese frosting since you won’t have to worry about consistency. I would use approximately a 9×13 inch pan if you’re making this as a sheet cake.
IF YOU LOVE THIS RECIPE TRY THESE OUT!
If you’ve tried this red velvet cake recipe then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you!
Best Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
INGREDIENTS:
For the Cake:
- ½ cup butter 113 grams, room temperature,
- 2 tsp vanilla extract 10mL
- 1 cup buttermilk 240ml, room temperature
- 1 tbsp vinegar 15mL
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder 15g
- 2 ½ cups flour 300g
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar 300g
- 2 tsp powdered red food coloring
- 1 tsp kosher salt 6g
- 1 tsp baking soda 6g
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 3 sticks butter 340g, room temperature unsalted
- 1 ½ lb confectioners sugar 550g, sifted
- 16 oz cream cheese 455g, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract 5mL
- 1 pinch kosher salt
For the American Buttercream:
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 113g, room temperature
- 1 ½ cups Confectioners sugar 550g, sifted
- 1/2 tsp rose water 2mL
- pink, yellow, orange food coloring
- matcha powder
Instructions
INSTRUCTIONS:
For the Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and cocoa powder three 6-inch cake pans.
- In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream your room temperature butter. Add in sugar and mix on medium until combined.
- Add eggs in one at a time and beat. Add vanilla extract.
- Add red food coloring and vinegar to the buttermilk.
- Sift in cocoa powder to the butter mixture.
- In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients together.
- Add ½ of the dry and ½ of the wet to the butter mixture until combined.
- Add the red buttermilk mixture and mix until combined.
- Pour the batter into three prepared pans. Add any extra batter to a cupcake paper. This will be used for the crumble. Add damp baking strips.
- Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the centers are springy to the touch. When done, let them cool in their pans for about 5 minutes, then dump them out onto a wire rack.
- Bake the crumble cupcake for about 15-20 minutes.
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Cream the butter. Sift confectioners sugar into a large bowl.
- Add room temperature cream cheese to the creamed butter. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt. Beat together.
- Add the confectioners sugar in cups. Mix until combined. If you’re wanting a stronger buttercream, keep adding more sifted confectioners sugar until it’s stiff. Transfer buttercream to a piping bag and snip off the tip.
For the American Buttercream:
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the room temperature butter until smooth.
- Sift in the confectioner’s sugar. You can add the sugar in two batches.
- Beat until you get to a desired consistency. Add a few drops of rose water. Make sure the buttercream is thick.
- Dye a few batches yellow, soft pink and pink. Use some matcha powder to create a natural leaf color. Transfer the green buttercream to a bag fitted with a 68 tip.
- Transfer buttercream to piping bag fitted with a 120 and 127 tip to make the petals.
- Cut a square of parchment paper. Use a tiny bit of buttercream to glue down the paper onto a piping nail.
- For the roses, place a small cone of very thick buttercream in the middle of the square.
- Add bits of yellow in the middle for added dimension. Pipe the petals using a 120 and 127 tip.
For the Assembly:
- To create the crumbs, you can either break up the cupcake by hand or use a cheese grater. I find that using the grater gives you a more consistent crumb for decorating.
- Pipe a thick layer of cream cheese frosting between each layer. Cover the cake in frosting.
- Use a bench scraper and offset spatula to smooth out the cake. Transfer to the fridge to chill for about 10 minutes or until the frosting is a bit set. If you’re in a warm climate, let your cake chill for even longer!
- Using your hand, scoop crumbs onto the side and top of the cake until it’s completely covered.
- Arrange the flowers on top of the cake. Pipe in leaves using the green buttercream.
Video
Notes
- If you’re not using 6-inch pans, double the recipe for 8-inch pans or triple the recipe for 9-inch pans.
- Skip the food coloring if you want a great tasting cake that isn't red.
- To get FLAT layers that are moist inside and out try using cake strips! You can buy a set online or make your own from foil and paper towels at home. I made a whole blog post on it so check it out if you’re interested!
- For nice uniform crumbs for decorating use the fine grater, or just whip out that cheese grater!
I hope I made it right… Instructions say to add half the dry and half the wet. Next instructions says add buttermilk. But isn’t the buttermilk the wet? I think everything else is accounted for…. Baking now so we’ll see!!
Hi John,
I made some cupcakes using your recipe and they were GREAT! My daughters and husband loved them.
They were spongy and moist. Thanks for sharing your recipes!
Thanks so much Marisol!!!
The best Red Velvet Cake you’ll ever eat! It’s soft, moist, fluffy, rich, strikingly beautiful and decadently delicious.
Hi Belandra,
Thanks so much for the feedback, i’m happy to hear you love this cake as much as I do!
Best,
John
Hi John! I love this recipe, have made it several times now =). I need to make only 2 6″inch..would I just make half of the recipe? Thanks in advance
Hi Aida,
I would keep the recipe the same and use the extra batter to make cupcakes.
If you cut the recipe in half, your layers will be very thin.
Best,
John
Hi John, Any idea why cakes would be coming out more dense rather than fluffy? Its happened to me in like 3 recipes ive done from you. I use everything you use!! Ingredients,cake strips everything.
Also, is your buttercream frosting recipe enough to fill,frost plus do a very decorative piping cake?
If not what should i do to buttercream recipe to be on safe side for more rather than run out?
Thank you
Tried it yesterday and and it was delicious. But had a lot of extra cheese Frosting. How long can I keep it refrigerated and what other cake recipes can I use it for instead of letting it go to waste. Thanks!
Hi Amelia,
You can store it in the fridge for 3 days. You can also freeze it up to a month.
I would recommend pairing it with my carrot and walnut cake.
I’m glad you enjoyed the cake!
Happy baking!
John
This recipe is amazingly delicious!! Thanks so much for sharing. I love your YouTube channel!
Hello Melissa,
It is my pleasure!
I’m glad you enjoyed this red velvet cake. It’s one of my favorites!
Best,
John
Hi! Thank you for this recipe! This one was the easiest and the most natural, in my opinion, ingredients-wise. I made it skipping the red colouring (I couldn’t found any in the bio shops, so decided not to use it at all). I followed the steps and the proportions quite accurate, just for the cream used only 250g of confectioners sugar and can say that even this was way too much for me. The cake turned out to be extremely delicious, but too sweet, every time I feel like having a hear attack 😀 also I read through the comments and people were saying that cream sometimes turns to be too liquid, so I end up adding less cream cheese (one standard pack of classic Philadelphia Cheese) and the texture of it turned out to be perfect! It was not squeezing between the layers, was thick enough.
I will definitely cook it again, just will try to figure out how to make the cream thick enough with less sugar 🙂
Tried the recipe.. it came out just perfect… Thank you John
Hey Smitha,
Thank you for the feedback! I’m glad to hear your cake turned out perfectly.
What will you bake next??
Best,
John
I tried to make this cake and for some reason it came out very very dense. It didn’t fluff up. What could I have done wrong? Any ideas? Love your videos and I love your recipes. Thank you
Hey,
I’m doing this recipe for a wedding cake and I’m making some 11 inch layers, any tips on scaling the recipe? I put it into a converter and I got this outcome, does this look alright?
2 Cups, 7 Tablespoons, 0.5 Teaspoons Butter
3 Tablespoons, 0.75 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
4 Cups, 14 Tablespoons, 1.25 Teaspoons Buttermilk
4 Tablespoons, 2.75 Teaspoons Vinegar
10 Eggs
14 Tablespoons, 2 Teaspoons Cocoa
12¼ Cups Flower
7 Cups, 5 Tablespoons, 1.75 Teaspoons Sugar
1 Tablespoons, 2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 Tablespoons, 2 Teaspoons Salt
Hello! This will be the 3rd time I am making one of your lovely cakes! But I’m wondering if I need to change the bake time, because my pans are 17 cm (6,6 inch?) diameter and 10 cm (4 inch) high. Especially because of the hight of my pans Im wondering this… Hope to hear from you!
Greetings, Jessie
Hi John:
Made this today, have not tried it yet because I’m serving it tomorrow! Cakes look great, but I was confused by a couple steps of the recipe. One step says to add half of the dry and half of the wet to the butter mixture. The next step says to add the red buttermilk to the butter mixture. By “the wet” are you referring to the red buttermilk? When do I add the rest of the dry to the butter mixture? (I just dumped the rest in at the end.) Sorry if I’m missing something. Thanks!!
Hello! I was wondering if I could use gel food coloring in this recipe? How much would I use? I just dont have red powder on hand. Thank you!
I know this recipe has been posted for months and is likely not on your radar, but if you see this, THANK YOU! I made this cake this afternoon and I can’t stop marveling at it. I’m new to layer cakes. This is the first Preppy Kitchen recipe I’ve made. This is the first recipe I have made in my 6×2 pans that was every bit two inches in each layer and yet so sound for layering. It’s a towering thing! So sturdy yet moist and fluffy?! WHAT?! I mean I’m crazy about the look of this cake! Hated to cut it, but it is delicious. Wow. New fan!
So happy you liked it!!!
John.. what brand of red food powder do you use ?
This turned out wonderful! I’m going to do an 8 inch one for my friend’s bridal shower coming up!
If using gel food coloring, how much should we use? Should we just eyeball it? Thank you in advance
Definitely eyeball it, every brand is a little different.
Thanks so much!
Hi can this cake be covered with fondant? Will it be strong enough or will it collapse ubder the weight? I wanted to make a 2 tier cake.
It might be fine with support but not the cream cheese frosting.
This was such an amazing cake. My whole family loved it!!